SJC overturns murder verdict

A woman convicted of murdering her husband has been granted a new trial in a split decision by the Supreme Judicial Court.

The SJC found that a Superior Court judge erred by issuing pretrial discovery orders that compelled the disclosure of many pages of notes, reports and statements generated by Dr. Daniel Brown, the defendant’s expert witness, to the commonwealth’s selected psychiatric examiner, Dr. Martin Kelly, and later to the prosecution.

“Because rule 14(b)(2) exclusively governs pretrial discovery relating to a lack of criminal responsibility defense, and because nothing in that rule obligates a defendant, before trial, to provide the Commonwealth’s expert … with copies of her own expert witness’s notes and other materials, we conclude that Dr. Kelly was not entitled to receive all of Dr. Brown’s 200 pages of materials,” Justice Margot G. Botsford wrote for the majority.

“When a defendant serves notice that she will call an expert witness to testify about her mental condition at the time of the crime based on her testimonial statements, the rule only authorizes a court-ordered psychiatric examination of the defendant by the Commonwealth’s expert, and nothing more,” Botsford said.

Justice Ralph D. Gants, in a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Judith A. Cowin, argued that “the only error regarding reciprocal discovery was one of timing and that this error was harmless when considered in view of the entire record.”